More Retreat Stuff

Raffle Prize #1:

I put lots of tickets in this one, because I think the necklace will look nice with my suit jacket.

I love the necklace. I tinkle when I wear it. (I must be giving lots of fairies their wings... oh, wait... that's angels.) The Siglarr "nourishing facial cream" appears to be something I'm not allergic to, from a test application to my forearm. Ingredients:

I should probably see if I can track down the maker to find out if the vitamin E oil contains sesame. (The things I learn from my soap-making book...)

Raffle Prize #2:

This actually started out with an electronic game instead of the stocking kit, but I asked another raffle prize winner if she wanted to trade... I live alone, and it was a game that people in my family likely wouldn't be good at. (I think you had to sing songs from popular shows, or something like that.) I entered for the alpaca-silk fibre. :)

Yes, both prizes came with the facial cream, but, since I had two, I gave one to my roommate for the weekend, who wasn't as lucky about winning raffle prizes. (She didn't win any.) I cheated for the photos, and used the same jar in both. ;)

Stuff from the goody bag:

(I actually got a second one of these reusable bags with my second raffle prize.)
Not shown: fibre plus needle-felting needle (shown below) and bag made from wool sweater (also shown below).

One of the workshops I signed up for was felted bead making:

I cut the tip to take a peak, but I'm not going to cut the rest until I've felted the whole thing firmer. Fun! (We did needle felting, but this style bead would work better if wet felted.)

Yarn purchases:

Last week was so crazy, I didn't manage to find time to pack until I got home on Friday, and then it was a scramble to cram stuff I might need in bags, so that I could leave for the retreat. I managed to remember everything *except* the recommended flashlight (my dad happened to have one in his truck) and the supplies for my workshops. I happened to have yarn that would work for the Tunisian crochet workshop, but didn't have anything for the broomstick crochet class. I bought this yarn for that class... I knew I wanted to use the fun green yarn, but also bought the plain yarn in case the green yarn didn't work well. (The green yarn worked okay, but it wanted a bigger crochet hook and bigger "broomstick"... I've since restarted.) The beige marl I'll use to make some of the sock monkeys from the sock monkey booklet I bought a while back.

Current state of the needle felting on the wool bag-from-sweater:

I still need to add more swirls on the left to balance things out.

Tunisian crochet dishcloth:

I invented the pattern. It's not perfect, but then I was learning as I went along. (I didn't know about the different cast-off method until I was half-way done the third quarter.) I think it'll make a great dishcloth. :)

And finally, the brainless knitting I was able to manage while not taking classes or working on retreat projects (or sleeping):

Yep, another dishcloth. :) Note: Bernat Stripes with three colours per sequence end up with two wedges of the same colour beside each other.